Theme: C AND W (67. Grand Ole Opry genre, briefly, that's also a hint to 21-, 33-, 41- and 51-Across) - Each theme entry is in the pattern of C* W*.
21. Comfy clothing: CASUAL WEAR. 32. T-__: 21-Across item: SHIRT.
33. Fowl fencing material: CHICKEN WIRE.
41. Forecast that calls for a scarf and gloves: COLD WEATHER. 49. Like extreme 41-Across: HARSH.
51. Circle with primary and secondary hues: COLOR WHEEL.
Boomer here. I am familiar with all of these entries, especially COLD WEATHER!
For those readers who were not here last week, our beloved constructor Gail Grabowski passed away on Christmas eve.
C.C. said that this theme idea was Gail's, since her name comes first in the byline. Bruce filled the grid and Gail clued the whole thing. This is how the legendary constructing team GAB (Gail and Bruce) collaborated.
 |
| Gail and Bruce |
Across:
1. Play for time: STALL. Also a horse's bedroom.
6. Soup aisle array: CANS. We have a cupboard full of soup,
vegetables, and other stuff that C.C. does not eat. I think she is
afraid of our electric can opener.
10. Murder mystery staple: BODY. Of course, "Mr. Boddy" was the
victim in the game of Clue. "I think it was done by Professor Plum, in
the kitchen, with the knife."
14. Apex predators of the sea: ORCAS.
15. "I __ my wit's end!": AM AT.
16. Sacred Nile bird: IBIS.
17. Many a Mumbai resident: HINDU.
18. Triangle ratio: SINE. "About binomial theorem I am teeming with a lot 'O' news with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse," (Gilbert & Sullivan.)
19. Hand over: GIVE. "GIVE me a break for a Kit Kat bar." Not me, too much sugar.
20. Do as told: OBEY.
23. Dog walker's need: LEASH. We do not have a dog. We had to
catch a mouse with one of those glue traps. He deserved to be caught,
he started to think that he lived with us.
25. "Little ol' me?": MOI.
26. Supernatural: OCCULT.
29. Appetizer platter items: VEGGIES. Yup, gotta eat those green things every day..
36. Morse "T": DAH.
37. Gas container: TANK. Ours stays pretty full. We do not
travel much in the pandemic, and the grocery store is about one mile
from home. Maybe I can use a bit more gas when golf season opens.
38. Abu Dhabi's fed.: UAE. I guess Emirate is just another word for state.
39. Nativity scene threesome: MAGI. I believe the three Kings
visit to the manger is celebrated on January 6. They brought gold,
frankincense. and myrrh. Now guys just bring cigars.
40. Red Cross offering: AID.
45. Plasterboard: DRYWALL. We had some water damage to our garage ceiling. We hired a DRYWALL handyman last fall and he fixed it up very well.
47. Separate by type: ASSORT.
48. LAX : Los Angeles :: __ : Chicago: ORD. Funny name for an airport.
55. Variety show lineup: ACTS.
59. Apple gadget with playlists: IPOD. C.C. had one. I don't know how it works.
60. Sinuous swimmers: EELS.
61. Letter-shaped opening: T SLOT. I struggle to fasten my seat belt in the Santa Fe. It's not a T slot but it sure seems like one.
62. Column before ones: TENS. "If you bought a premier seat to
"'Hamilton" for $850.00 cash, how many Hamiltons would you need to pay
the bill. They asked this on "Common Knowledge" and none of the six
players had the correct answer.
63. Pudding starch: SAGO.
64. Prefix for Rome's country: ITALO.
65. Jittery: EDGY.
66. Spiderweb, e.g.: TRAP.
Down:
2. Chicago daily, for short: TRIB. Our Minneapolis daily is StarTRIB. We used to have a morning Tribune and an evening STAR. They combined many years ago.
3. Proactiv+ target: ACNE.
4. Female symbol of good fortune: LADY LUCK. A fun Casino in down town Las Vegas. I went to see Melinda's magic act there years ago.
5. The SEC's Tigers: LSU.
6. Acapulco abodes: CASAS.
7. Pennsylvania sect: AMISH.
8. Half a Mork-to-Orson farewell: NANU. Robin Williams aka Mork from Ork left us in 2014.
9. Soft-shell clam: STEAMER. Stanley's last name.
10. Kingpin: BIGWIG. In the movie "Kingpin" Bill Murray was a lousy bowler. They should have cast Pete Weber or maybe Parker Bohn.
11. NYC drama award: OBIE.
12. Female opera star: DIVA.
13. Belgian river: YSER.
21. Blanchett of "Ocean's 8": CATE. Probably the only actress who ever cut herself with a chain saw.
22. Theater tier: LOGE. This is where the cigarette smokers used to sit. Not any more.
24. Deer in a lodge logo: ELK. I joined a lodge many years ago.
They sponsored a Little League team that I coached. However it seemed
that in the lodge they just sold low-priced drinks and pull tabs.
26. Set of eight: OCTAD. Years ago I had an OCTAD of teeth. Now I have a set of two dentures.
27. Committee head: CHAIR.
28. Williams of "Laverne & Shirley": CINDY. Lots of reruns
on cable TV now. Years ago, at the Graybar City Desk we used to have
two customers I called Lenny and Squiggy. Cracked everybody up.
29. Beach house selling point: VIEW. Minnesota has miles and miles of lake shoreline, but not too many beach houses. The ones that exist are way overpriced.
30. Boise's state: IDAHO. I have two cousins that live in Twin Falls of the potato state.
31. All fired up: EAGER.
34. Void partner: NULL.
35. Fistful of dollars: WAD. Does anyone use dollars anymore??
39. Calif. Cascades peak: MT SHASTA.
41. Author Caleb: CARR.
42. OK Corral setting: OLD WEST. Three deaths in October, 1881, and Wyatt Earp got his own TV show in the sixties.
43. British noble: EARL.
44. Donkey: ASS. Very impolite answer to the clue, I would say.
46. Like a forest: WOODSY.
49. Hägar's comics wife: HELGA.
50. Writer of tales with talking animals: AESOP. A famous Greek who told a lot more stories than me.
51. Name in a footnote: CITE.
52. Page with opinions: OP-ED. I usually skip this page in the StarTrib.. Most Opinions usually do not match with mine.
53. Time-consuming: LONG.
54. Catch wind of: HEAR.
56. Tartan-sporting family: CLAN.
57. Broke the news to: TOLD. "Though it never made the New York
Times, in the Daily News the caption read - Save the life of my child."
(Simon and Garfunkel).
58. Store securely: STOW.
61. Personal quirk: TIC.
Boomer
32 comments:
HELGA hailed from IDAHO,
Said, "To Boston I will go!
There to the man
I'll teach that CLAN
It's not pronounced potahto!"
A HINDU fakir did declare
"I will don some CASUAL WARE!
In slacks and SHIRT
I will be girt!"
(And CHICKEN WIRE underwear.)
{A, A.}
Good morning!
So LADY LUCK wasn't LAZY SUZY. Who gnu? Also stumbled with WILD WEATHER -- both WARR and ILD WEST looked weird. Oh, the weather was COLD. D'oh. Despite the Wite-Out, I was able to zip right through this one. But it's Monday, after all. Thanx to the late GG, as well as BV and Boomer. (ORD stands for Orchard.)
I was breezing along until I inked OCTet but ei? Plus I saw plaster and thought "trowell". I ironed that out but couldn't make sense of what seemed to be CANDW???. The theme wasn't helping. Finally light dawned on that old Govenor of Massachusetts.
I should have taken a sec to re-grok the theme.
I was thinking that Gail did the top(easy) half and when Bruce got in he decided to toughen it up.
FLN, re Lucy… The comments agree with me that there might have been a "Lucy" and she might have drawn something but that song was about LSD. Just like the Eagles wrote about heroin in "Hotel.."
They're not "lying"- Anyone that needs to know, knows and vv.
Speaking of FLN, who was that masked Arabian who posted late?
WC
FIR, but ignored the theme. In 1984, we took our family on a cross-country trip of 28 days and 8000 miles. Our second stop was in Nashville, where we took the kids, kicking and screaming, to the Grand Ole Opry. The kids wanted to go to the nearby amusement park. On the whole trip we had an anti-Vacation rule: no amusement parks. The kids had already been to Kings Dominion, Disney World, and Busch Gardens, so we felt justified. Some ice cream after the show saved their day. Nice to see iPod in the grid. I had two models of iPod before three iPads.
FIR, two days in a row now. Good start to the week and a challenge to keep it going. I saw the themers but at first with WEAR and WIRE thought the gimmick was a vowel change (were and wore coming next). I didn't notice that the first words all started with C until the reveal. A good Monday puzzle, by Gail and Bruce. Hope there are more in the pipeline to come!
Boomer, a very nice review today by you. Your picture of tapioca puddings made me hungry. SAGO was one of my two WOs. I was seeing arGO, the brand name of my cornstarch in the pantry. The other WO was NANU where I had Nyah or something first. I can't even read it now since perps soon fixed it. Anyway, a FIR for today!
FLN: Sorry to hear about your mother's accident, Anon-T. Hope she feels better soon. Such sudden events cause disruption as well as plenty of pain, as everyone knows. After six weeks my wrist is improving and our routines are slowly returning to normal. It didn't affect my puzzle fun, thank goodness. Hope everyone has a good start to the week.
Good Morning
How poignant seeing Gail’s name once again. And the puzzle was a typical Gail/Bruce collaboration: simple but cute theme, clean fill, and a fun solve. My only w/o was Clue/Body and zero unknowns. Enjoyed the critter sub-theme with Orcas, Ibis, Chicken, Eels, Steamer (Clam), Elk, and Ass. I saw the C ~ W pattern early, but thought of the cable channel, not the music genre.
Thanks to the always terrific team of Gail (RIP) and Bruce and thanks to Boomer for his humor and light-hearted banter.
FLN
Anonymous T ~ Glad your Mom wasn’t seriously injured and hope she’s on the mend. Yes, that watermelon fiasco almost did me in, but I’m still here and kickin’! I decided to take my fellow Cornerites’ advice and get a Smart Battery and keep the car, at least for awhile. Right now, it’s being used by a niece whose own car is in for repair.
Have a great day.
Nice smooth Monday - I'll miss the Gail & Bruce collaborations. Only changes were CASUAL TEES to CASUAL WEAR and WOODED to WOODSY- perps to the rescue - they were both the first fill in their area!
OHare airport was built on what was originally Orchard Field - they kept the ORD letters.
Thanks Boomer - for another amusing start to the day!
Todays is D-Day for starting a new system for our electronic medical records - it will be a long day I'm sure!
Hola!
R.I.P. Gail! My heart contracted when I saw her name but what fun to have this Monday opus from her and Bruce. I hope there will be more. Look at Alex Trebek. He died in November and his taped appearances continue though I understand this is the last week for them.
Thank you, Boomer! Your Monday appearances light up the day!
Yesterday was the feast of the Epiphany so MAGI is appropriate.
Clue #15, "I ____ my wit's end!" FLN, CSO to Anon-T as we discussed yesterday your bicycle ride in Carmel.
I really like Cate Blanchett; she performs superbly in every movie in which I've seen her.
Tell me, what is the difference between an I-POD and an I-pad.
Have a marvelous Monday, everyone!
Good Morning.
Thanks, Bruce, for a great start to the week and the New Year. RIP Gail. I didn't know we were so close in experience minus the puzzle construction. I wonder if our paths crossed in the English Department at NIU? Thanks for so much pleasure.
This is the first puzzle I have completed for 2020. I gave up the the rest. Maybe I wasn't focused. I didn't get the theme today--natch. I did have good luck with my first guesses on the theme clues.
Anon-T: Sorry about your mom. Good wishes for a speedy recovery.
Have a great day everyone. Be well and Stay safe.
It was both sad and nice to see the byline. Yet another unnecessary reminder of the mixed bag aspect of our existence.
The puzzle went smoothly. FIR without getting the theme until it revealed itself at the "end" of the grid. I usually start in the NW and finish in the SE but there is really little reason for this other than habit and, of course, the puzzles often have other paths in mind for me.
I remember seeing MT SHASTA for the first time. It made quite an impression on this kid from the city. I probably would have gone with the Forest Service Owl for WOODSY.
Good morning everyone.
Yes, I didn't pay attention to the theme, either. C AND W was my last fill. Only wite-out was I had 'wooded' before WOODSY. I felt like I was saying 'Goodbye' to Gail all the way through this. RIP.
No problems with the solve. FIR.
HELGA - I had a cousin named Helga.
OCCULT - - Some lighthouses' prescribed pulse sequences are OCCULTing.
Have a great day.
Lucina, an IPad is a tablet computer; an IPod is a portable audio player with earbuds.
Musings
-I erased CANDW as I knew that couldn’t be right.
-My dad’s nine brothers were big C AND W fans but would not recognize what that genre sounds like today. Where have you gone, Hank Williams?
-No BODY (corpus delecti) was ever found but he was sentenced to 71 years for murder
-Granddaughter has introduced new kitty to walking on a LEASH
-Yeah, Boomer, cigars came to my mind as I sang too.
-I found my old “bluetoothless” iPod. Now I gotta find some earphones.
-CHAIR is non-gender. I thought about that yesterday when I sang, “Let me walk with my brother” in the song Let There Be Peace On Earth
-Learning to footnote drove me crazy
-Off to yearly Dr. appt. in Omaha. 40ish Dr. Canella and I will talk for twenty minutes about a lot of things and very little about my health.
-Gail’s byline always indcicated a fun puzzle was in store!
Marvelous Monday. Thanks for the fun, Gail (RIP) and Bruce, and Boomer. I am very sorry to hear of the death of Gail and extend condolences to her family. I always enjoyed her CWs.
Quick solve today, but arrived here to discover that I FIWed. Silly mistake caused by entering Iser instead of YSER (and not noticing the silly Bodi!)
But I did get the C AND W theme. (I am not a huge fan of that genre; friend's daughter is doing well in Nashville so I get some exposure.)
I had Octet before OCTAD. (When I ask Mr. G what the difference is, I get "As nouns, the difference between octet and octad is that octet is a group OR set of eight of something, while octad is a group of eight things". WHAA??? Clue uses "set" which makes OCTAD the better answer, but I still don't understand the difference. Can any of our grammarians help me out or are they synonyms??
Of course, Octet gave me EID for the "Red Cross offering"; I rationalized that EID was a Muslim holiday and Red Cross could refer to that (but should have thought Red Crescent). Monday brain fog!
We had Snert yesterday and HELGA today. (Yes I lurked yesterday)
Of course, you all know that Canadians have a ColoUr WHEEL. And we do not have a WAD of dollars; those Loonies are too heavy to carry many fistfuls around. LOL
And any Canadian winter day "calls for a scarf and gloves"; we don't need a COLD WEATHER forecast to tell us. The HARSH forecast would be a Polar Vortex!
FLN - AnonT- Sorry to hear about your mother's accident. Best wishes for her full recovery.
ATL Granny- glad you are recovering from your wrist injury.
MadameD - it is 2021 LOL! (which reminds me to fill in 2021 on a few cheques to start the new year).
Wishing you all a great day.
Wilbur C ... from last night... the 'masked Arabian' troll posting ... I happened to look at last night's mail, and saw the 'spam' posted. It somehow aroused my curiosity, and since I have no knowledge of the arabic language, I clicked on the Avatar, and then Google auto-translated the result, into the English.
Thus, this is presumably a company advt for selling Stone facades and outdoor stone and Tile decorations. The name Hajar Hashemite etc., indicates either a Jordanian or Egypt connection.
The Jordanian royal family, is oft referred to as the Hashemite dynasty. The phone numbers indicate a middle east country, but I am not going to try to reach out. :-X)
If you click on the top blog(s) on the avatar detail, you can see the hundreds of buildings where they have decorated with stone and tile facades...
The Advt probably said that the 2020 stocks of Tiles and decoratives Stones, for building outdoor facades are over-stocked, AND EXPIRED, ( 2020 just got over -) and hence on SPecial Sale !!
.... And they probably confused CrossWord Corner, with some sort of CrossTiles Corner Home decoration interest group.
Mystery solved. ( partially).
BTW, the telephone prefix .... 0106 ..... is a fake tel no. code in the UK, used for spamming and phishing, and caution should be used when and if trying to call back....
...but could be a legitimate number from Egypt. UAR - United Arab Republic.
I may have misunderstood the theme...
Some words to live by...
And if you ever get the chance to visit, (post pandemic of course)
You must see Opryland in Tennessee. It's like a country and western Disneyland
That is totally indoors. But so big you would think you were outdoors.
Best fun I had there was walking around in a humongous thunderstorm
And enjoying the fireworks without getting wet.
Here is a tour.
Aw nuts!
here is the correct link #2
Typical fast easy Monday but a couple of missteps: Needed to prep-change dot/DAH. Inkovers: WOODed/SY.
Theme? All the long answers start with C and contain a W, E and R? CREW? So I finally get the theme but then went overboard. ...CREW.."CASUAL WEAR" "CHICKEN Crew" COLD WEATHER Crew etc. (Anybody buying this? 🤔..I didn't think so)
"You cant go back to Constantinople...or Bombay (Mumbai)"
Hope the YSER river is finally glued to my memory. Waited on perps for OCTAD (not tet). VEGGIES isn't considered an abbrev? OBEY, OBIE (where's oboe?)
MAGI (Lucina: I agree yesterday's Sunday mass was designated as Epiphany but isnt the feast January 6?).
CANDW a bit of a stretch
Column before ones? zeros? TENS comes after if one left to right
Cowardly telegram....CHICKENWIRE
One who is Ired (🙄)....STEAMER
Dancing, with her, he stepped on Harriet Beecher ____ STOW
Good morning all. Thanks Gail (RIP) and Bruce for the Monday workout and thanks for the'splainin', Boomer. Got the c w theme after third long entry. Always seem to have difficulty when 2 letters are connected with and. O on nano turned to a u and cede turned to give. FIR. Great start to the week and wishing all the same.
Ray-O
Yes, the 6th is actually the feast of the Epiphany but the church in her mysterious way chose Sunday to recognize and celebrate it.
desperO
Thank you. So an I-pad is an actual pad while an I-pod is a musical device, is that right?
My heart also sank when I saw Gail as one of the constructors of this Monday Gail and Bruce puzzle. She will be sorely missed, and I hope we'll still get another one or more before it's all over. Lucina, I have the same feeling about Alex Trebek. It makes me happy to still see him every night and am just sorry this will be our last week with him. Roles like Gail's and Alex's make them sort of members of a virtual family, don't they?
And the other final gift was that this Monday was a total gem. I got every single bit of it and loved the clues and the theme and everything. Started out getting CASAS, then AMISH (hey, I'm from Pennsylvania), then NANU (loved "Mork and Mindy") and I was on my way.
Thanks for the kind commentary, Boomer.
And thanks for the fun poems, Owen.
Have a good week, everybody.
Thank you Gail ( R.I.P. ) and Bruce for an easy and charming puzzle, and Boomer for a humorous review. Boomer, your bon mots make the easy Monday, even more fun and enjoyable. We eagerly look forward to your continuing fun situations and experiences with your new Sante Fe .... ;-o)
When I ended the puzzle with a C AND W, I 'got' the word alliterations, but was not familiar with the music genre. until I googled it. Oh, Country and Western ....
I have been to Nashville, about 10 times, ( on work, and for family reasons ) and the reconstructed Parthenon, in Centennial Park, 15 times, but never to the Grand Ole Opry.
On remembering the river Yser ( Belgian name ... IJzer, yes, 2 capital letters ) ...
This was the 'fixed' front between the two armies, the Allied and Axis forces, for the whole of the 5 yrs of World War I ( 1914-1918 ).
The Third Battles of Ypres (1917), four miles east of the Yser river, had combined casualties of 1.2 million, and the allied capture of the village of Passchendaele.
So, 300,000 casualty people per mile.
Cheaper than the Battle of the Somme, (earlier, in 1916), where the total casualties were 1,350,000 for another 5 miles of territory.
On July 1, 1916, Britain had 60,000 casualties, at the Somme, in a single day.
Both these places are now, tulip fields and parking lots, ... and cemeteries.
War is hell.
Rather a poignant moment seeing the late Gail Grabowski on the puzzle..
And a nice Monday one it is, no issues. A nice way to start the week.
Stay safe.
Madame Defarge @8:22 AM
So, the possibility of you and Gail crossing paths in the English Department at NIU was interesting. I was there as well, but years too early to encounter either of you.
So sad to hear of Gail’s death. I have enjoyed unraveling many of her CWs. Yet another sad 2020 memory. This CW itself was delightful, with only two items tripping me up temporarily: TARO instead of SAGO, corrected by perps, and misreading “SOUP” as “SOAP” and having a forehead slapper when the perps gave me “CANS” and thinking, “Since when does soap come in cans?”, and re-reading the clue. (DOH!!) Let me be probably the last to wish everyone a “Happy New Year!” It almost has to be better than 2020.
Lucia, when I was a kid the churches celebrated The Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6.when They started observing it on Sunday because hardly anyone came on the 6th.
Hi All!
Thanks Gail (may her family find peace) and Bruce for a fine Monday puzzle. I wonder how many more Gail puzzles are in Rich's hopper.
I noticed the C&W theme after 21 & 33a.
Thanks for kicking off the after-party Boomer. I had fun imagining your Lenny & Squiggy [Hello] customers.
WOs: wrong ware, OCTet -> OCTAD
ESP: CARR
Fav: I normally pick a Non-Themer but... 'cmon: "We got both kinds; Country And Western."
{A, B+}
LOL #2 CED!
Thanks ATL Granny & C, Eh! re: Mom. She's home and fine but on pain meds. Thankfully, nothing is broken. Glad to hear your wrist is improving ATLGranny.
As a lazy agnostic-Catholic, I will use Epiphany to put off taking down Christmas decorations until Wednesday [but I have a feeling DW will put her foot down tomorrow :-)]
Lucina - yes. iPod is a little device (that's now the size of an iPhone) for playing music and (now apparently) video games. iPads are tablets. iPhones are a bit of both + a cell phone; minus the screen size. iStore if you're really interested. Apple's stuff isn't inexpensive but very well designed.
Cheers, -T
Requiescat in pace, Gail...and thank you.
Carrots! //and they're tasty.
Cheers, -T
RIP Gail! I’ll miss you. Bruce, Boomer, thanks also.
Lovely Monday puzzle. I’ll take a CSO at LSU and SEC, but I’ll have to share with Hahtoolah.
I also have kids who live in the shadow of Mt. Shasta. Does that count?
Tony, prayers for your mom whether you want them or not . She may.
Owen, A+, A+ !
AnonT- I gained a Ukrainian surname when I married DH. I use it as an excuse to leave Christmas decorations up past Jan 7 (even though we do not celebrate Orthodox Christmas)😁🌲🌲🌲😁
I had a rather quick and easy FIR solve before the sun came up this morning. Saw the theme. Then, I got busy catching up on museum stuff and a few other things at home, so I’m finally here.
Broke my heart seeing Gail’s byline and wondering how many more of her puzzles we will have. Gonna miss them! They were always so much fun and usually quite doable for me!
HG --- Hank Williams has gone to Country Legends 97.1/KTHT, beautiful downtown Cleveland, TX!!! It is the local country oldies station. Modern C&W music leaves me not quite a cold as modern R&R does. I imagine you can stream it, although I don’t know anything about that stuff. I only listen to it when I’m in the car.
-T --- FLN, thanks for the link!
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